[TUHS] What is this 1972 C/NB program?

[Jim Geist via TUHS]

If I remember, it's an anachronism from B, like when the operator
assignments where still =+, =-, etc.

On Thu, May 14, 2026 at 12:24 PM Will Senn via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

> Ah, duly noted. I read it as old C, but not that old :).
>
> Will
>
> On 5/14/26 08:46, Clem Cole wrote:
> > Will. That was the original B/C syntax.  Remember that B, like BLISS
> > has only one data type: word. So pointers are not special.  I suspect
> > this is very early C, possibly nB given that it has a char type.
> >
> >
> > Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
> >
> > On Thu, May 14, 2026 at 9:22 AM Will Senn via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
> wrote:
> >
> >     it's looking for hyphens as previously explained, but here are a
> >     couple
> >     of notes:
> >
> >     int nread 1;
> >
> >     should probably be    int nread = 1;
> >
> >     static ibuf;
> >
> >     should probably be    static char *ibuf;
> >
> >          or
> >
> >          static int *ibuf;
> >
> >     These look like bugs, but old c was quirky, so I wouldn't swear by
> it.
> >
> >     Will
> >
> >     On 5/13/26 20:57, Thalia Archibald via TUHS wrote:
> >     > This mysterious program is in the s1 tape, but has not yet been
> >     identified.
> >     > Does it look familiar?
> >     >
> >
> https://github.com/DoctorWkt/unix-jun72/blob/master/src/cmd/unknown.c
> >     >
> >     > It looks like it processes line continuations. It filters files
> >     to only runs of
> >     > lines continued with hyphen with the adjoining whitespace
> >     stripped. Only letters
> >     > and hyphens are allowed in such lines.
> >     >      [a-zA-Z-]+(-\n[\t\n]*[a-zA-Z-]+)*
> >     >
> >     > But there's bugs, so the grammar is actually the following,
> >     where EOF is
> >     > included in the negated sets as NUL:
> >     >      ([a-zA-Z]|-[^\n])+(-\n[ \t\n]*[^ \t\n]([a-zA-Z]|-[^\n])*)*
> >     >
> >     > Could this be a sort of preprocessor? Perhaps for some sort of a
> >     configuration
> >     > language?
> >     >
> >     > It reads the list of named files, printing each filename with
> >     "%s:\n \n" before.
> >     > The space on an empty line is strange.
> >     >
> >     > It uses & and | for conditionals and is typed, characteristic of
> >     early C and NB.
> >     >
> >     > It uses this horrid indentation style, which doesn't match ken
> >     or dmr.
> >     > Do you recognize who? Example:
> >     >
> >     > while((b[++i] = get(ifile)) != 0)
> >     >          {if((b[i] >= 'a' & b[i] <= 'z') |
> >     >          (b[i] >= 'A' & b[i] <= 'Z'))
> >     >                  {c[j++] = b[i];
> >     >                  goto cont;
> >     >                  }
> >     >
> >     > I've taken some liberties to simplify it below. I changed it to
> >     operate on a
> >     > single file. And equivalently, I reformatted it, replaced an
> >     unnecessary buffer
> >     > with a single char, and simplified control flow. See the above
> >     link for the
> >     > original.
> >     >
> >     > char c[60];
> >     >
> >     > main(argc, argv)
> >     > int argc;
> >     > char *argv[];
> >     > {
> >     >          char b;
> >     >          int isw, j, k;
> >     >
> >     >          isw = j = 0;
> >     >          while((b = getchar()) != 0) {
> >     >                  if((b >= 'a' && b <= 'z') || (b >= 'A' && b <=
> >     'Z')) {
> >     >                          c[j++] = b;
> >     >                          continue;
> >     >                  }
> >     >                  if(b == '-') {
> >     >                          c[j++] = b;
> >     >                          if((b = getchar()) != '\n') {
> >     >                                  c[j++] = b;
> >     >                                  continue;
> >     >                          }
> >     >                          if(j == 1) {
> >     >                                  isw = j = 0;
> >     >                                  continue;
> >     >                          }
> >     >                          isw = 1;
> >     >                          while(((b = getchar()) == ' ') || (b ==
> >     '\t') || (b == '\n'))
> >     >                                  ;
> >     >                          c[j++] = b;
> >     >                          continue;
> >     >                  }
> >     >                  if(isw == 1) {
> >     >                          k = 0;
> >     >                          c[j++] = '\n';
> >     >                          while(k < j)
> >     >                                  putchar(c[k++]);
> >     >                  }
> >     >                  isw = j = 0;
> >     >          }
> >     > }
> >     >
> >     > Thalia
> >     >
> >     >
> >